Blue water absorbs more solar energy than white ice—accelerating the Arctic's meltdown
, a Greek merchant called Pytheas set off for a long journey north. He brought back reports of a land called Thule, six days north of Scotland, “where... there are no nights during the [summer] solstice...and also no days during the winter solstice”. It is unclear if Pytheas made it there himself, or merely heard tales. But for this and his account of a “congealed sea”, he is said to have been one of the first Arctic explorers. Were he to return today, he would find a very different landscape.
The best-known consequence of Arctic heating is rising sea levels. Melting sea ice does not raise the water level, for the same reason that melting ice cubes do not make a cup overflow. However, water trapped on land in Greenland’s ice cap does increase the sea level when it melts into the ocean. Another feedback loop involves frozen soil. Normal garden soil consists of 5% carbon; soil in Arctic permafrost regions, rich in organic matter, contains 20-50%. It is thought to hold a total of 1.1-1.5trn tonnes of carbon, more than the atmosphere and ten times as much as the Amazon.
The third threat posed by Arctic warming is less scientifically certain but more immediate. Higher Arctic temperatures are thought to affect weather patterns in the northern mid-latitudes, where weather systems form as a result of the temperature gap between the hot tropics and cool pole. The jet stream pushes them west to east.
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